After 30-plus years in Florida, a Northeast Ohio native and her husband find their dream home.
By Sharon Holbrook
Photography by Kevin Reeves
Donna Nahley bubbles over with excitement about Shaker Heights’ trees, architecture, and the kindness of its community. Most of all, she’s thrilled with the 1915 colonial-style house on South Woodland Road that she and her husband Mitch bought just over a year ago. Its generous windows, abundant light, pleasing layout, and handsome built-ins all drew Donna and Mitch in. Donna, a retired interior designer, delights in every detail, and she just as happily digs into the history of the home as she does into her plans for updates.
Before their move to Shaker, the Nahleys experienced some difficult years. After the death of their beloved adult son Shane, the couple decided to leave Jacksonville, Florida and make a fresh start. They first moved to Colorado, not far from one of Donna’s sisters. But both Mitch and Donna suffered from incurable altitude sickness, even after three years and many attempts to address it. It was time to make another move. The Cleveland area was at the top of the Nahleys’ list. Donna grew up in Conneaut, about 70 miles from Shaker Heights, and her other sister still lives in the area. The Nahleys enjoy the change of seasons, and Donna, retired but still passionate about design, loves historic homes. So when Donna and Mitch traveled to Conneaut in 2021 for a family funeral, they added some extra days to their trip to explore neighborhoods and housing options.
First and foremost, Nahley wants to honor the house and its history.
In search of beautiful old homes, they headed to the Heights, where they happened to meet realtor Paul Morris at an open house. He helped the couple set the wheels in motion by locating a rental for them in Cleveland Heights. They would live there while searching for the perfect house to purchase. Paul reached out regularly to share listings as they popped up in a red-hot housing market. Donna had expressed a preference for a Tudor home, or perhaps something with Spanish influence, but Paul called the Nahleys with something else entirely: the South Woodland Road colonial they now own.
Donna says she knew the minute she walked through that this was it. But there were five bidders, and the Nahleys struck out. As luck would have it, the contingent buyer backed out, and the Nahleys got another shot. This time they were successful. Donna, already smitten at first sight, finally got her dream home. Now, her labor of love could begin.
When the Nahleys bought the house, it had already been updated by the seller, a renovation company that had bought it from the previous long-time owner. While they like most of the updates, Donna has her designer eye on every detail. First and foremost, she wants to honor the house and its history.
Remarkably, all the owners through the years had passed down the home’s original blueprints as well as a sheaf of papers with the architects’ specifications for details in the home. Mitch noticed that the blueprints show that the home was built in 1915, not in 1912 as county records indicate – a date which is also etched into the historic home plaque by the back door.
The Nahleys, curious to learn more of the home’s history, reached out to Meghan Hays, the local history librarian at Shaker Heights Public Library. She was able to share more information, including the original building card for the house, which confirms the 1915 build date, and information about Meade & Hamilton, the wellrespected architects who designed the Nahleys’ home. (The house is modest compared to some other Meade & Hamilton projects in Shaker, such as the Marshall Mansion on Lee Road at South Woodland Road.)
Donna intends to incorporate this history into the home. She’s planning to scan the blueprints and use the scans as custom wallpaper for the firstfloor powder room. She’d also like to get a new historic home plaque from the Shaker Historical Society with the correct date of construction. And she’s even thinking about honoring all the home’s previous owners with plaques on the wall of the front entry.
Honoring the home’s history is about more than names and dates for Donna, and she has identified many details she wants to change to make them more appropriate for the house.
A sliding glass door in the kitchen will eventually come out, and in its place the Nahleys will install French doors that echo those on the other side of the house that lead from the sunroom to the broad side porch. Similarly, she plans to eventually add a backyard pergola with a design echoing the trellis-like supports of the side porch.
The backyard, Donna is quick to point out, has a contemporary brick patio that doesn’t jibe with the vintage of the home. Instead, she will install sandstone. Mitch points out the sunken area that may have been a backyard pond in past decades, and both express regret about the trees that they had to remove because they were rotting. Right now, it’s too cold to do anything in the backyard, but it’s not too cold to dream and plan. Donna says this is the year they plan to buy porch furniture and enjoy their spacious porch in the warm months.
“I’m not exaggerating, the people here are amazing,” says Nahey, praising the kindness of the community
Donna is overflowing with ideas – here in the kitchen, she’ll fix the grout, change the light fixture, and expose some original brick and, there in the living spaces, she’ll swap out the rug, add blinds, repair window glazing, and update some of the furniture and paint. Always, she frames her ideas in terms of what the house deserves.
Donna clearly enjoys exercising her creativity. She hasn’t always had time to focus on her own home like this. Before she retired, she would typically work 10-12 hours a day caring for her own clients and working at Arhaus as a designer in Jacksonville. Now, she can enjoy the process for herself in her own home – and without the exhaustion of long hours.
While Donna makes each design decision with an eye towards the home’s history and architecture, her other eye is on comfort and a personal sense of style.
“If you’ve had a bad day, this is where you want to feel rested and rejuvenated,” she says, and this plays into her decisions about fabrics, seating, lighting, decorative items, and, especially, art. Over the years, the Nahleys have collected art that’s meaningful to them, and it’s traveled from home to home with them even as other furnishings have changed.
Whether it’s finding someone to hang that art, or looking for contractors who understand historic homes, Donna marvels at the friendly and helpful people she’s working with in Shaker. She mentions District Arts Gallery in the Van Aken District and bldc design studio on Warrensville Center Road as both being particularly generous and downto- earth with suggestions and resources. The Nahleys moved to Shaker Heights for a beautiful home and neighborhood, but the cherry on top has been the community they’ve found.
“I’m not exaggerating, the people here are amazing,” says Donna, praising the kindness of the community, the warm welcome she and Mitch got from their neighbors, and the new friends they’re making here. “I’m just astounded at the people around here.
“I couldn’t be happier here. I just love this house, and I have so many ideas for it.”
Note: If you find original house plans in your home and you’re wondering how to care for them, or if you’d like to learn more about the history of your home, contact Meghan Hays, the local history librarian at Shaker Library. Email her at localhistory@shakerlibrary.org or call 216-367-3016.
